In an effort to boost its presence in North Africa and the Middle East, PayPal is hoping to sign up between 20,000 to 25,000 merchants and thereby garner 10 percent of the region’s e-commerce customers over the next two years.

PayPal is eyeing out more market share in North Africa and the Middle East. (Image: Google/kaliwise.com)

According to the company, PayPal is currently available in seven countries within the MENA region, with one million customers, but the company’s CEO Elias Ghanem said they expect their growth to be “exponential”

He said “PayPal is facing increasing competition from start-ups such as Stripe, Braintree and WePay, which also provide tools and services for sellers to accept payments online.”

Although countries like Egypt are still unable to use PayPal, with the Arab Spring opening up the banking sector, the US-based company hopes to enter these markets, with tens of millions of potential users still to be tapped.

PayPal also said they had inked an agreement with Aramex, the largest courier company in the Middle East and North Africa, to make overseas transactions easier for Middle East customers using Aramex’s Shop & Ship service.